


Forever Overhead

by glittersnipe



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:28:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28480941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittersnipe/pseuds/glittersnipe
Summary: A life with your third-oldest friend.(Companion to Etiquette for International Businessmen)
Relationships: Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Comments: 16
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

“What do you think it means?” Kendall asked.

“How the fuck should I know?” Stewy said. “Are we already at this stage of the night where you freak out about your dad? Could you take a fucking day off, maybe?”

He could tell Kendall had done enough that he thought he was being professional, cool, mano a mano: my new assignment, off to Shanghai, what do you think, my fellow businessman, that means? But no matter how coked up Kendall was, Stewy saw: he always saw. It was true that he was good with people, yeah, but Kendall was so painfully transparent at the best of times, and now was clearly not the best of times. He was going to be a moody shit, Stewy could tell, if fucking Waystar Royco was coming up already. As if they didn’t have anything else going on -- as if _he_ didn’t have anything else going on. 

“Thanks for the advice,” Kendall said acidly.

“Yeah, thanks Kendall, I’m doing great, and how are you?” Stewy said.

“Oh fuck _off_.”

“No, _you_ fuck off. Seriously, bro,” Stewy said. He could feel himself losing his sangfroid, which pissed him off even more. He was not, at this stage of his life, used to doing so; certainly not around his spoiled little brat of a friend. It threw him off his equilibrium more than he cared to admit, being caught off guard by Kendall. He didn’t like the feeling at fucking all, but there it was: he was pissed. “You’re such a fucking self-absorbed little prick sometimes, you know?”

“Uh, okay,” Kendall said. As if shocked that his problems could be insignificant in the grand scheme of things; as if insulted by the implication of their smallness. His face immediately shut down into its customary sulky moue he thought passed for indifferent. “Jesus Christ, okay, sorry -- uh, sorry, princess. How are you doing? How are your --” and here he put on that bitchy voice Stewy just fucking hated -- “ _feeeeeelings_?”

“Better before I came here,” Stewy said. He stood up, brushed himself off. Kendall’s apartment was tastefully decorated, with exquisite professional taste; Stewy had recommended the decorator himself. Kendall had clearly felt himself going out on a limb, not going with the Roy family-appointed interior designer. These little flashes of rebellion were equally endearing and pathetic. He looked for his coat theatrically.

“Oh come on,” Kendall said, scrambling to sit up properly, and Stewy already knew he’d won. Kendall couldn’t bear to be left alone in one of these moods, and so threatening to leave always won Stewy the prize (of what, exactly?). But Ken now knew he’d lost, and he knew Stewy knew, and so that spoiled little brat mouth of his twisted even more nastily.

 _Fuck me_ _,_ Stewy thought, _why do I fucking bother. I should just fucking leave, anyway._

Kendall looked at him sulkily, and then his face cracked and he scrubbed a hand over it. “Look, sorry. Another line?”

“No, dude, Jesus. Did I or did I not just ask you if you ever take a day off?”

Kendall looked like he was considering starting on it again, _what’s that supposed to mean_ \-- but he knew he was on time-out and instead he just said “Fine, I was just offering,” and threw his credit card on the table, another pathetic little attempt at dignity.

They sat in uneasy silence, Dizzee Rascal blaring over the premium soundsystem, subwoofers shuddering with bass. Kendall crossed his arms over his chest and stared at him. Stewy wished that he’d bothered putting his contacts in; he had come prepared for, like, pizza and beer and the game, not whatever this was. And yeah, he was game, he was always game, but it was a Tuesday night and Kendall didn’t even seem to have plans to hit the town which: they were in Manhattan, the glittering centre of a sparkling city without time, there was always a party, there were always girls. In a penthouse or in the basement. But Kendall was doing lines in sweatpants, unshaven, not in the manicured way, and he wasn’t really game for a drag of a night. Except. He was still here. But he wasn’t going to break first. 

Kendall stared at him and said meanly, “So, how are things going with you, Stewy?”

“Fuck you, dude,” Stewy said. “What is _wrong_ with you? Look, you have five minutes to tell me what the fuck is up with you because I did not come across town for you to throw one of your sad little temper tantrums, okay?” He was starting to get seriously pissed. There was always a degree of posturing with Kendall, the little displays needed to put him in his place -- otherwise he’d eagerly take any chance himself, like a yappy aggro little doggy -- and Stewy enjoyed it, mostly. He enjoyed the sparring. But also: he wasn’t here to be fucking abused. There was a limit to even his patience.

Kendall slumped back, arms still crossed, and chewed his lip, and then finally seemed to make a decision and said: “Look, I’m really worried about this Shanghai thing.”

“Was that so hard?” Stewy said in his reasonable voice that masked how pissed he was, because: seriously? All that fucking song and dance for Kendall to admit that he just needed his blankie? 

Kendall rubbed another hand over his face. He looked exhausted. He seemed to suddenly realise that he really was pissing Stewy off, and he uncrossed his arms and made an unconvincing attempt to look relaxed, friendlier. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, and there was no hint of meanness in it this time. He seemed to go to rub his hand over his face again, and stopped himself. “I really am, Stewy,” he said. He went suddenly from pissy to plaintive. “I’m just -- I can’t fuck this up, you know?”

“Yeah,” Stewy said. He considered: he’d still been summoned across town just for the pleasure of listening to Kendall bitch and moan, and he could still just up and leave. But he wouldn’t. He consciously relaxed back into the couch, pantomiming like Kendall. But some of the tension did deflate, and Kendall smiled at him warily across the room.

Stewy was torn between: _So what do you want, a fucking participation trophy for doing a standard tour of business that by the way was straight handed to you by Daddy_ , and _You’ll do great, dude._

“Can we, like, order a pizza or something?” he said instead.

“What?” Kendall said, startled, and then his face cracked into a look of sudden concern. “Oh God yeah of course man sorry. Sorry I didn’t think.”

“Well, you never do, do you?” Stewy said, and immediately regretted it -- but the hurt that flashed across Kendall’s face was immensely satisfying, all the same. 

“What do you want,” Kendall said contritely. “I’ve got a menu for that place you like that delivers uptown somewhere around here.”

An hour later, Stewy was tucking into the pizza -- Kendall was too wired to eat -- and they were watching some shit on TV and shooting the shit about whatever, and they were enough beers deep that Kendall had finally started to fucking relax. And also, admittedly, same. Kendall was relaxing, a bit, and they talked general corporate strategy, Stewy told him about the role he'd just landed, and Ken gave some surprisingly good advice. He was making a conscious effort to be interested in Stewy, making up for his previous sulk. 

And if Stewy was going to be a pussy about it, he’d have to admit: he just liked hanging out with his friend. But lately, it was always a fucking fight. Which again, he could enjoy, could get into, but sometimes it was just such a fucking struggle and he wanted to relax, too. He was human too, which obviously you could never say, or admit, but: he was, and he got off on a fight as much as the next guy, but sometimes a guy just wanted to chill the fuck out, you know?

Over in the corner, Kendall was getting noticeably sloppier, having transitioned from coke to beer without food in between. 

Finally Stewy gave in. “Okay. Tell me about Shanghai,” he said. As they knew he would. 

And so Kendall talked, and talked, and it was his usual bullshit, spinning himself into worried gyres for no reason at all: Dad this and Dad that and Waystar this and responsibilities that. Stewy could have literally recited it along with him. How repetitive it was to be Kendall, how exhausting. Chasing a thing forever overhead.

But also: how repetitive to be his friend. How repetitive to be anyone’s friend. It was why he didn’t have many. But there was something about Kendall that clung. His spikes, perhaps.

So he recited mechanically along with him: _No, bro, you’ll be great_ , and corrected the obvious strategy mistakes, and realised as Kendall talked that he was going to fuck it up anyway. He couldn’t quite see around himself, and he didn’t quite realise that to be the King he had to first be the King-killer. Stewy wondered when he’d see it. His plans for Shanghai were ambitious, overly so: he didn’t realise he first had to be a good little soldier and train. He couldn’t take his place until he’d earned it, and he was so hungry he was moving too far ahead, too fast. And did he deserve the title, after all, if he couldn’t?

He felt something close to pity. 

But also: same shit, different night.

Once Kendall had talked himself out, he seemed to relax, and exhaled into himself. But when Stewy looked at him closely, it was just that he was drunk, and he realised that Kendall was now looking at him coyly, which like this shit again?

But also: he hadn’t gotten his dick sucked in a while, he’d been pulling a lot of fucking late nights at the office, he was tired, and hey, he’d put in the work, hadn’t he? He’d listened to the bitching and the moaning, hadn’t he?

But also: Kendall gave terrible, sloppy head when he was drunk; he was too enthusiastic, used his teeth which no thanks. Kendall moved closer to him on the couch. But the thing was, Stewy was a big dick fucking up-and-coming, and big dick up-and-comings did not do blackmailable gay shit with their best friends, which again, when would Kendall fucking learn? Stewy liked Maseratis, he liked yachts, he liked pussy, he liked all the things _he_ was supposed to like. When would Kendall return the fucking favour? Kendall moved closer to him again and Stewy moved away. Kendall frowned.

“What’s wrong?” he said. 

“Personal fucking space, dude,” Stewy said pointedly, and Kendall retreated, making that fucking sulky pouty face _again ._

“Fine,” Kendall said, and put his hands up. “Thanks for listening to me earlier about, uh, you know.” He waved a hand. “Everything.”

“Oh, my pleasure. As, you know. Always,” Stewy said, not taking his eyes off the TV. He tilted his beer bottle in Kendall’s direction. He could feel the sulkiness emanating from Kendall that he wasn’t getting the attention he wanted, and fuck him too. 

And then, as they also knew would happen: Kendall was plastered and Stewy had to put him to bed. Another college classic, another real rote trick he was getting real sick of. When was he going to grow up and learn to handle himself?

But it did feel good to be in charge, all the same. To be the one with his shit together.

“You’re my best friend,” Kendall slurred at him, as Stewy heaved him off the couch, and Stewy said, “Yeah, yeah, I know, come on, let’s get you to bed, big boy.”

They staggered down the hall. They were more or less of a size, and Kendall kept fucking with him, trying to steal his glasses, steer him into the wall. Stewy tried to be pissed off at this, too, but found he couldn’t; he was drunk, too, and laughing. He retaliated by body-checking Kendall into a wall, perhaps harder than was strictly necessary, and Kendall hit the wall and the air was knocked out of him. And suddenly Stewy was holding him against the wall, and their noses were very close together. The hallway was dark. The bridge of his glasses dug into his nose, for a moment. Kendall’s breath smelled of beer. 

“I’m really gonna miss you,” Kendall said, and there it was. After all that.

“Fuck off,” Stewy said, for lack of anything else to say. He weighed it up in his mind. There were always, after all, advantages to keeping Kendall Roy sweet.

“No, I’m serious,” Kendall said. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” He angled his body in towards Stewy. Open.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll miss you too, buddy. It’ll be like Romeo and fucking Julia Child, or whatever. Come on,” Stewy said, and released Kendall from the wall, and half-held-half-carried him to bed. 

In the bedroom Kendall collapsed into bed, and as Stewy turned, his hand was being grasped, and Kendall pulled, giggling, and Stewy half-caught his balance and half-fell on top of him.

“You’re such a fucking dweeb sometimes, Ken,” he said, but he was smiling and Kendall was grinning up at him and stinking of booze and then Kendall lunged and kissed him, sloppily.

It was not a good kiss. Kendall had always been a wet kisser, a particular dislike of Stewy’s, and he led with too much tongue, and besides which, he was fucking hammered. And: it wasn’t like Stewy was either sober or had particular scruples vis-a-vis ensuring similar levels of drunkenness or whatever; but from experience, sex with hammered Kendall was not particularly satisfying, and besides, again (and of course, obviously, most importantly), he was not _here_ for that _weird gay shit_.

Still, all the same, he thought he’d indulge Kendall, and so he leaned into it. He pressed Kendall’s shoulders into the bed, tried to steady him, guide him. Kendall kept trying to lunge. Aggressively, as though he were trying to climb into Stewy’s mouth, into his body. He should have stopped it. But something hidden and human twisted inside him, and he thought: why not a final kiss goodbye before sending him off to his failure, his fate? 

And fuck it, who would know?

Finally Kendall relaxed, and stopped trying so hard, and Stewy kept his hands in place so they wouldn’t wander, and the kiss lasted for a moment longer, and then Stewy broke it. 

Kendall smiled up at him, booze-glazed, and put his hand on Stewy’s, and then rolled onto his side. He grabbed Stewy’s wrist.

“You’re right, Stew. I’m gonna do great things in Shanghai,” he said. “But I’m really gonna miss you.”

Stewy let himself be held for a second, and then he removed Kendall’s fingers; Kendall was already beginning to pass out. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Miss you too, bro,” and then he turned and let himself out, and left.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s at home, eating premium take-out sushi and watching HBO, answering some work emails on his phone, when suddenly it vibrates. It’s an unknown number, and he lets it go to voicemail, but it comes again and again, so he figures it’s important.

“Hello, is this Stewy Hosseini?” says the woman’s voice on the phone, crackling with static.

“This is he,” Stewy says, around a mouthful of unagi. 

“Siobhan Roy. Shiv. We’ve met before?”

“We have, yes,” Stewy says, and then immediately the penny drops, and he says, “Is this about Kendall?”

“Ah, yes,” Shiv says, not even sounding taken aback. 

_Oh, my fucking God,_ he immediately wants to say. _What is wrong with you people._

“Go on,” he says, and puts her on speaker, and keeps eating, chewing and making sure she can hear. He rubs the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “What’s the latest with the Little Prince?”

“You’re -- you’re his friend, right?” she says.

“I haven’t signed an NDA, if that’s what you mean.”

“Okay,” she says, considering. “Well I -- we -- want to get him back to New York.”

“And I can assist you in this endeavour how,” Stewy says, savouring a particularly umami pop of ikura.

“Well, you’re his friend, right?” Shiv sounds impatient, and again: _what is wrong with these people?_ He’s used to getting what we wants, yeah, but not on a seemingly fucking relentless, planetary scale. Though if he plays his cards right, he could be on the path, albeit a Roy-entangled one, which is already fucking exhausting on a personal level let alone a professional one. He shudders to think what a shitshow the business must be, if this is how they run their personal lives.

“Yes,” Stewy says. “How will I live to regret this admission?”

“Okay,” Shiv says. “Okay, well. He’s not in a good place. He was in hospital a while ago.”

“Well, shit. Did his liver give out?”

“That’s not funny,” she says, and he realises she must be really panicking. They’re such a secretive, clannish bunch; why is she telling him this? Is she trying to hide this from Logan? She’s gotta know that’s impossible. It’s not like Kendall exists meaningfully outside his orbit. She must realise that -- right?

“Hold on, Shiv, are you in Shanghai? Why are you calling me? Why do you want to get him to New York”

“Yeah, I'm in Shanghai” she says, and pauses, and then in a rush: “Look, Dad already knows and it’s not that, it’s just -- I don’t know what to do to help him, he’s in a really bad way, he had a seizure, there was some rando in his apartment from Waystar minding it.”

 _Well, shit,_ Stewy thinks. _I guess Kendall did manage to fuck it all up._

“Forgive me if I’m not following you here, but what specifically do you want _me_ to do about this? He’s a big boy. And, you know, between us girls here, there’s gotta be a Plan K, it’s not like nobody saw this coming.”

“So I hear,” Shiv says dryly, which gets a smirk out of him. “Look, could you just, maybe, call him? He listens to you. He won’t listen to anyone else.” 

“I mean, not that I’m not flattered to be, well, Shanghai’d into your whole deal, but is this not surely more of a send in the psychs kind of a situation? What exactly can I do here that Betty Ford can’t?”

“Yeah,” she says, “But we won’t be able to keep that out of the news, you know that, Stewy.”

"Him being flown to a hospital or whatever in New York will make the news too, Shiv, come on. Best bet is that hospital he's already been in, if it hasn't made the news already."

"Okay," she says. He can hear her pouting through the phone. “Will you convince him? Please?”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Stewy says, already feeling regretful, but what can he say, chivalry is not dead, he’ll do anything to help a lady in distress. And her coked-up fuck-up of a brother, apparently. “I’ll call him, okay? But Shiv, this is a one-time favour, you get me?”

“Oh, _thank you,_ thank you,” Shiv says breathily down the phone and Stewy thinks, _fuck, you’re one to watch out for._

“No problem-o, _infanta,_ ” Stewy says. “No promises, either.”

He hangs up. He rubs the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. Man to man conversations about, you know, feelings, are not exactly his forte, or Kendall’s. But Shiv’s right. If Kendall goes to rehab, and it leaks, which it will, his stock price -- and having basically insider knowledge, he’s invested a lot over the years -- has a chance of tanking; it’s well-known that Kendall’s being groomed for CEO position, and any hint of scandal around him could have a knock-on effect on Wall Street re: Logan’s general judgement. And also, you know: Kendall. Stewy might be getting sick of his shit, but he’s seen the lengths that Kendall will go. Last at the club, one more for the road, keep the party going. Clawing forever around the corner for the luminous remains of a thing unseen. He’d noticed this little tendency for years. But he’d been on the ride, too; when they were in college, Ken was a blackout drinker, but who wasn’t? 

And Ken was a little unstable, sure -- on a binge once he’d punched a wall in Stewy’s room and bloodied his knuckles, which although was not a big deal re: security deposit was kinda a massive drag on the overall vibe, which Ken could sometimes be. He’d go missing sometimes. But who doesn’t overdo college sometimes? And it’s not like they lived together, they drifted in and out of each others’ lives, he went solid stretches, months, years, without seeing Ken, the way you do when you go way back. There were surely multiple friends that Shiv could have called. Right? He wonders if he should feel more guilty. He wonders if he should feel less guilty. 

He dials Kendall, who picks up on the second ring. “Heyyyyyyy buddyyyyyy,” he slurs into the phone, clearly drunk as shit, and Stewy’s stomach does a cold flop sans neural intention. It’s like, 9am or some shit in Shanghai, he’s pretty sure. Where the fuck is Shiv in all this? What is going on?

“Hey, K-Dubs, what’s up,” he says, feigning lightness. “How’s Shanghai going for you?”

“Oh you know, chowing down on the local cuisine,” Kendall says. “Empire of the Fun, am I right?”

“Wow, that sounds super-duper cool, bro,” Stewy says.

“Fuck off. Why did you call me? What's up?”

What the fuck was Shiv expecting him to do? For once, he was at a loss: Ken was usually good at pulling himself out of these weird little spirals he went on, but it was, like, morning in Shanghai, right? He sounded fucking hammered. Wasn’t this what their whole weird Hapsberg deal was about? What could Stewy tell him that Shiv couldn’t? What sort of magic trick was he supposed to pull? He felt intense responsibility paired with an equal rejection of said responsibility. It wasn't fair. And yet.

“Hmm,” he says, unsure of how to attack. “What time is it over there, Ken?”

“Who the fuck knows,” Ken says, and laughed like a drain. “Oh, hey, Dad loved my big speech to APAC, by the way.”

“Did he now. Loved it so much you’re out of the office and you sound plastered at like, 9am on a Thursday, dude?”

“Hey, I’m celebrating,” Ken says.

This is so blatant as to be insulting. “You’re celebrating a _speech?_ Did your Dad personally suck your dick afterwards?”

“Okay, well, that’s fucking disgusting,” Kendall says in that highly aggrieved way he has when he’s going on the defensive. “Hope you’re enjoying jerking off to that, you fucking perv.”

“Don’t misdirect.” Stewy wanders into the kitchen and grabs a beer from the fridge. He presses it against his forehead, briefly, pops the lid, sucks it down. “Why are you drunk at 9am on a fucking Thursday in Shanghai?”

“What are you, the Fun Police?” Kendall says, getting more indignant. “Hey, uh, why exactly are you calling me anyway, Stewy, who asked you to?”

He debates briefly between: _can’t a guy just want to catch up with one of his oldest and most dysfunctional friends?_ And _Will you give me a straight fucking answer for once in your life, bro?_

He takes another drink and opts for: “Don’t flatter yourself, nobody is doing a personal psy-op on you, dude. It’s more that, you know, it’s _patently not normal to be fucking plastered at 9am on Thursday morning._ Even for us, man. Even for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kendall yelps.

“Will you shut the fuck up for one second man and just answer my _fuck_ ing _ques_ tion?” Stewy snaps.

Kendall is silent over the phone, clearly strategising, and then he says, slowly, “Did Dad set this up?”

Stewy clenches his fist around the bottle. He hears Kendall take a swig of whatever he’s drinking.

“Kendall,” he says. “I’m not Logan Roy’s personal bitch, unlike you. I’m running out of patience here, man.”

“Okay, _fine,_ it went shit, okay? And then I had a party, and then, I don’t fucking know, I was with some weird guy,” Kendall’s voice cracks, and Stewy is mildly horrified at the idea that he might be crying, which he frankly does not want to deal with, “I woke up in fucking hospital, and now Shiv is here, and I think I really fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Stewy says, lightly. “Sounds like you did, huh.”

“I’m a fuck-up,” Kendall whines self-pityingly. Stewy rolls his eyes. 

“There’s a difference between being a fuck up and fucking up, man. Same as your fucking drinking now, you dumb alco piece of shit.”

“No, there isn’t,” Kendall insists. “I’m a fuck-up, and a -- a --” his voice cracks again. “They said I had a seizure, that I was lucky I didn’t die.”

“Sounds like you probably shouldn’t be drinking, then, huh,” Stewy says. He's sort of at a loss for what else to say. _Kendall, buddy, stop doing this to me._ There's some sort of _thing_ inside Kendall that's not inside Stewy, that he doesn't and can't recognise. _Kendall, buddy, why are you doing this to me. And yourself._ It's been coming for a while, now, is the thing: he'd foreseen the failure when he sent Kendall off to bed, he'd sensed the _thing_ inside Kendall rearing up again. He'd been worried. It turned out he'd been right to be worried. 

For a moment, he thanks whatever's up there he had the luck to be born unbent by the Roy crown. 

“I’m such a fuck-up.”

“For fuck’s sake, Ken, will you snap out of it?” Stewy says. “You fucked up, you’re not a fuck-up, there’s a fucking difference.”

“What fucking difference is there?” Kendall sniffs.

“Uh, between being and doing, dude, have you not heard of a growth mindset?” Stewy says, sort of pulling this out of his ass from some McKinsey presentation he’d heard years ago. He's grasping at straws here, trying to speak to Kendall in a language he'll understand. If he just says what he wants to say: _snap out of it man, you're one of my oldest friends, you and me together bro, if you could just get your shit together we could rule the fucking world_ \-- what would Kendall even say to that? Two different languages. Linear A and Linear B. 

“Just think about it logically," he says instead. "I mean, like, if you’re a fuck up, what does that even mean? What, are you going to fuck everything up for the rest of your life?”

“Dad said --”

“Oh my God, you’re an adult man, fuck your Dad. Answer me. If you’re a fuck-up, does that mean you’ve fucked up literally everything in your life?”

There’s a pause and Kendall replies. “Well, I sure fucked up when I had that seizure.”

“Yeah, you did,” Stewy says. “But now you gotta pull yourself together. Okay?”

Kendall is silent. 

“Answer me, bro. Look, you’re gonna put down whatever you’re drinking and you’re gonna let Shiv take you back to the hospital and you’re not gonna have any more seizures, okay? They’ll give you the primo drugs, there, dude, whatever Chinese piss you’re drinking won’t even compare.”

“Wait,” Kendall says. “Shiv?”

“Yeah, bro,” Stewy says, “She called me because you scared the shit out of her.”

“Oh. So. Someone _did_ tell you to call me.”

Sometimes he really just wants to shake Kendall.

“Yes," he says, and pinches the bridge of his nose again. "Because she cares. And for whatever godforesaken reason, so do I, dude, this is not cool. So can you get your shit together? Please? And go to the fucking hospital and not die because your Dad got mad at you for like, ten minutes?”

There’s a silence. Stewy finishes his beer. _For Christ’s sake,_ he thinks. Well, unlike Kendall, he's never fucked anything up, and he's not about to let this personal project go.

He waits, and finally:

“Fine,” Kendall says dully.

“ _Thank_ you. Go do it now. Put me on speaker. Go talk to Shiv.”

“Are you serious?” Kendall slurs.

“Yes I’m fucking serious, are you kidding me? Kendall, you could have died, what about this do you not get?” Stewy could punch the fucking wall, he really could. He wants to reach through the phone and kill Kendall himself.

“Fine,” Kendall says sulkily which oh my God, really. He puts Stewy on speakerphone and Stewy hears heavy movement, and a rustling, and Kendall shouts _Shiv_ and he hears a faint feminine voice in the background and he thinks, _you motherfucker, you feel so sorry for yourself and you don’t know how good you’ve got it._

But if that were true, he supposes, why’s he the one scraping Kendall off whatever floor this is -- again? What's this thing that won't go away?

There’s muffled talking, and he waits for a minutes, standing in his kitchen, resting the beer on the counter and tapping his manicured fingernails against it.

“I’m going now, Shiv is on the phone with the concierge,” Kendall says. 

“Jesus, was that so hard,” Stewy says. His gut flips again: relief, anger, something raw he can't place. He declines to examine it further and writes it off instead as, quite reasonably, being pissed that his friend is apparently intent on killing himself. But again. Linear A and Linear B. None of this either of them can say, or understand.

“Boo hoo, now I’m going to go get the finest drugs in China,” he says, instead, which startles something resembling a laugh out of Kendall. He hears the bottle settle, and Shiv shouts, _Ken, time to go._ "Oh, thank God," he says.

There's a pause, and then: “Thanks, Stewy,” Kendall mumbles. He sounds opaque, listless. 

“Don’t do this shit again,” Stewy says. “I fucking mean it, Ken, I’m not always gonna be here.”

“Um, yeah, actually going to echo Stewy here,” he hears from Shiv. “Thanks Stewy -- I’ve got him.” 

The line goes dead. 

“For fuck’s sake,” Stewy mutters to himself, and he thinks, _that family is a fucking poisoned chalice,_ and he grabs another beer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is literally no reason for chapt 2 but self-indulgence


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scenes from life with your third-oldest friend.

Before he got sucked into Roy bullshit he was on the up-and-up; you could say he was better off without them, before he got dragged into their orbit, and you wouldn't even be that generous, even if later his reputation'd end up in Waystar's fucking implosion, even if later he'd apparently let himself get gladhandled and then thoroughly fucked by Kendall. But younger, back before it all: He's a mover. He gets shit done, he always has. He moves up the corporate ladder, even though it’s all bullshit -- he’s young, he’s got more smarts and balls than half the fucking executives he reports to, and he leans on a natural talent of his, i.e. the ability to work really fucking hard, and party even harder, without looking like he’s even close to breaking a sweat beneath his Dior suit. He walks in and out of boardrooms like he’s strolling off a tennis court. He’s arrogant, and he gets his ass kicked a bunch, but the thing about Stewy is he’s the Comeback Kid, he’s rubber and you are fucking Elmer’s finest, he’s always the last man standing (“like a fucking cockroach,” an infuriated and inebriated colleague slurred at him, once, as he blinked with the faux-placidity he’d already perfected). 

And yeah, there are things that don’t go that well for him -- like trying being Arab after 9/11, for example; the fucking “random selection” patdowns from newly-installed TSA psychos in front of sniggering colleagues; the apparently infinite and inventive fucking ways to mangle _Hosseini_ (“Like Saddam? You all related?”) _,_ he’d almost be impressed if it wasn’t coming from all sides, relentlessly, endlessly. That one guy who’d asked him to pronounce his first name and looked fucking _susicious,_ squinting at his passport, when he’d said, flatly, It’s Stewart, you know, pronounced like Stewart. Like the fucking mouse. Like the world’s most Anglo-Saxon name, who would have guessed, maybe that was on purpose. He would get absolutely rat-faced (ha) in first class in those years that, now with distance, were perhaps a little more wearing than he initially cared to admit. He would order around the air hostesses: big scary Arab terrorist making white women bring him champagne. One time his colleagues showed up wearing keffiyehs, forcing one on his head, ululating around him. 

There were different flavours of it; his colleagues weren’t, you know, like the TSA guys or whatever. It’s not like they were calling him an Ay-rab or telling to go back to Eye-raq; they’d been to Ivies. It was all a big joke. It was funny. 

Until he could win, he had to join in. He made the jokes, he put his hands up, guilty as charged, ha ha, yeah, gotta get back to my harem, don’t forget to check under car service for bombs after I’ve gone, ha ha ha. And all the while inside he grew colder, hardened; he saw these fat old white guys seeing him, and he saw his reflection in their rheumy blue irises: some nothing, some brown parvenu. Gauche Saudi royalty at very best (though never let it be said that Stewy Hosseini was not an enterprising young man: he played that card at clubs and the bottle service was _exquisite_ when believed by the establishment to be OPEC-funded; in the strobe lights, coruscating across his Campari, he understood what money could buy you). He knew that to burn was only ever to immolate yourself, and he saw men melted and weeping on the pyres of their own hearts. Not for him: cold like a coin, he saw and pursued his future: richer han the house of fucking Saud, richer than Croesus, richer than God himself. 

He despised them. He pursued them. He sniffed out their opportunities and took them for himself. He kept them close: scions on his speed-dial, fathers at his fingertips. He fucked their daughters. The occasional son (well. Unacknowledged, even to himself: one). He’d climbed the ladder, kicking the rungs out beneath. he had wheedled and threatened and raided and cajoled and captured corporately. He’d even, once, participated in some bizarre cuckolding thing at some senator’s house with some senator’s wife; he’d been pretty sure it had been some race fetish thing, the way cuckolding fantasies tended to be, except Stewy was probably the closest they got to Black. And yeah, he wasn’t blind to the basic reality that clearly he himself had been asked for reasons of power and who exerted it over whom as much as he was likely the only “exotic” person they knew; but an exposed back is still an exposed back. And what was he, apparently, but a sneaky Arab? What were they expecting?

Kendall Roy was often with him at these parties, before he started to burn up too hot and become a liability. Usually not explicitly invited, but: Leaning forward, blending into the crowd, ordering what they’d ordered, wearing what they wore. He could never tell how someone to whom this life was congenital could be so fundamentally ill-at-ease in some ways and so blithely privileged in others. Like Stewy, Kendall was constantly scanning the horizon, feeling the shifting of power beneath his feet; it was organic, second-nature, as part of them as teeth or claws. But where Stewy was, _what_ Stewy was, Kendall seemed only to perform. He could have told you, for example, that Kendall had observed no fewer than three drink orders before making his own; that his tie was knotted in a half-Windsor, the illusion of a thicker neck; that he’d loosened it after no fewer than three other men had. Stewy _saw_ him observing, and he was rarely baffled by anyone but he was genuinely baffled at how Kendall could sometimes seem to, like -- lag, like a circuit breaker snapped in his head, and would seem to stutter out of himself. When they’d been children together Kendall had actually had a stutter, but would also insist on answering questions, which annoyed the whole class -- including, Stewy had observed, the teacher -- and made him about as unpopular as it was possible for someone as rich as Kendall to be, and which status he didn’t seem to understand, given that he also played sports _and_ did student journalism _and_ volunteered _and_ was in band _and_ threw sick ragers in his parents’ Hamptons houses plural -- what wasn’t to like, was Kendall’s whole deal, wasn’t he giving it all and doing it all?

But they’d also known each other since they were literally children; they’d spent afternoons, weekends, at each others’ apartments and pied-a-terres and summer houses and winter cabins, and they played at business and smoked their first cigarette together and Kendall would help him with his homework (unnecessary, given their respective tutors; but Kendall really seemed to enjoy it, helping him, and Stewy enjoyed indulging him; it was also conducive to a certain superiority). He pitied Kendall’s earnestness, his toothy grin. They made him feel cool. They’d been on the same Little League team; Stewy’s dad had shown up to games to cheer for them both in lieu of two sets of parents. He’d been the first person Kendall had told about his parents’ divorce, and when he’d heard Kendall cry in the middle of the night he hadn’t even made fun of him, even if he didn’t say anything. In high school, when Stewy had firmly pulled ahead of Kendall in the ol’ popularity stakes, when he’d lost his V-card even when Ken couldn’t cop a feel (which again: how was it possible to be that goddamn rich and so fucking wimpy you couldn’t score on its basis?). Drunk girls seemed to make Kendall skittish until he was drunk and then he was sloppy and overbearing. He’d still hung out with Kendall, though, even though Kendall didn’t seem to acknowledge the reputational hit he was taking on Kenny’s behalf. Their friendship endured. Even when they’d gotten their SATs back and Stewy had done basically as well as Kendall; they’d both gotten into Harvard even though Stewy did literally like half the work, skipped practice, gotten high, felt up cheerleaders instead.

Kendall had been hypertensively red, throbbing with apoplexia, thoroughly unable to fathom his failure to run rings around Stewy and like, hold on a second here because: _he_ was the one who was running the fucking rings here. Was it worse: that Kendall didn’t _know_ that, or that Kendall was so mistaken he thought it was the other way around? The fight -- not their first, but certainly their most vicious, still children enough to really hurt each other, not for words -- had ended in a broken rib for Kendall and a black eye for Stewy -- but had also had ended with him victorious, chest heaving atop Kendall’s writhing body slowly coming to a panting stop, and when he’d raised himself up Kendall lay beneath him, between his legs, glaring but not moving, blood glazing his teeth and lower lip. Stewy, blazing with adrenaline, wrenched Kendall’s arms down by his shoulders and pressed him into the floor, Stewy leaning into his palms, staring down at him, and it felt _good_ , Kendall pinned beneath him staring sulkily up at him, eyes gleaming with spite. In a brief flash, he wanted to hold Kendall’s face beneath him and spit on it so Kendall would know beyond a doubt who had won, and he pictured Kendall disgusted, beaten, open-mouthed, and something must have changed in his face because Kendall suddenly wrenched out of his grip with surprising strength and pushed him off. “You’re a fucking asshole. Jesus,” he’d said, staggering to his feet. “Fuck you, I’m going home.”

“Fuck you. Get out of my house. Dick,” Stewy had said, and slammed his bedroom door behind him, and then he locked it and lay on his bed and jerked off, still furious. Kendall stayed away from him for all of a week, before sheepishly hitting him up for some of his cousin’s Xanax at school. When Stewy said, daintily, “I don’t know, Ken, see, I need it because my _face hurts_ ,” he replied, “You broke my rib, shithead, I had to tell my dad it was a lacrosse accident.”

“If he knew how badly you’d lost that fight he’d have broken the rest of them,” Stewy said, “You’re lucky I don’t tell tales.” Kendall opened his mouth to argue and Stewy put his hand over his mouth and shushed him condescendingly but gave in anyway and gave him the Xanax and a skipped class and a blunt later they were back in Kendall’s room talking about stupid shit like always. 

**

He’d met Logan once, as a teenager. He was baked as shit, engrossed in the fridge, while Kendall was fucking around doing something in his bedroom; they’d been supposed to be going out, but Kendall, when high, was difficult to wrangle. He seemed to get a kick out of being gently but strenuously defiant. It was easiest to let him get bored and work it out by himself, and in the meantime, there was beer in the fridge, it was a sunny Friday afternoon in New York with little dust motes dancing through the light filtering in through the tastefully muted damask curtains in the Roys’ big-ass apartment. The recent rain had washed all the pollution out. Kendall’s mean and pushy little sister was off somewhere doing god knew what, and his weird-ass little brother had recently been sent away (and not a moment too soon: although Stewy might have winced had he cared to consider it, to think of what said weird little brother was in for vis-a-vis treatment from his peers relating to his unbearable personality, he might also have said that such hypothetical treatment from his peers might mitigate said unbearable personality, and said mitigation would not go entirely amiss. He was convinced he’d caught Roman peeping-Tomming him in the shower one time). 

He found a Bud in the fridge, next to a bottle of Dom with some sort of tacky crystal stopper in it. There was vodka in the freezer, which Kendall had gleefully and piss-drunkenly shown him multiple times. Kendall’s mother was, apparently, a vodka drinker too; or at least someone was, because Kendall seemed to enjoy surreptitious swigs sans a sneaky water refill and yet somehow never got him caught. The bottle was like the fucking never-ending fountain of youth. Stewy, whose parents were generally over- rather than under-involved in his life, found the inconsistency baffling. In any case, it was too early in the day for vodka, which would put him on the floor thanks to the heroic amount of weed he’d already ingested. He popped the Bud and closed the fridge and felt the back of his neck prickle and there was the Grand Poobah himself, watching him beadily. Stewy had the sudden distinct impression that he should be grovelling for the beer. It was not a feeling he enjoyed, even if he'd grown already to expect it from rich old white fucks.

“Who the fuck are you?” Logan said. Stewy, who was already a precocious little shit, immediately felt compelled to tell him that he was being both rude and inhospitable, but he’d never hear the fucking end of it from Kendall if he upset his precious Daddy, so he opted for the unctuous charm he’d already begun to cultivate. 

“Stewy Hosseini,” he said, reaching out a hand, which Logan didn’t take. He continued to stare at him, and there was something about his stare that reminded Stewy of the bright, malicious intelligence of a chimpanzee. He felt like Logan was trying to take him apart. But also: he found his sensibilities legitimately offended; this was legitimately fucking rude, and Stewy, who had grown up in a household largely devoid of macho posturing -- a household in which manners and decorum were highly prized -- found himself deeply unimpressed by the depressing dicks-out dinosaur posturing he was facing. He was taller than this guy, and what the fuck had he contributed to the world, anyway, some depressing-ass propaganda to brainwash Boomers and sell, fucking, Reagan memorabilia? Please. This was the person Kendall was so scared of?

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Roy,” Stewy continued, hoping his eyes weren’t too red. “I’m a friend of your son’s --” when he was interrupted by Kendall skidding around the corner in socked feet. “Stewy, you piece of shi--” he began before stopping dead, a ship run aground on a hidden rock. The smile plummeted from his face and he straightened his shoulders. He swallowed audibly. “Dad --” he said. “I didn’t realise --”

“Get your friend’s grubby little paws out of my fridge,” Logan said. “Drinking my beer. Don’t you have work to do? If you’re so light on work to do, I can find you some. Unless you’d rather get drunk on my dime instead.”

Kendall’s mouth worked. He was visibly, painfully high, and it hadn’t escaped Logan’s mean little chimpanzee eyes. Stewy had never seen Kendall quite like this: Kendall could be a bit of a wimp, sure, a bit soft, but Stewy knew him beneath those mushy edges. Kendall had his own bullying streak too; he was a tenacious little piece of shit in his own way, propelled by a sense of entitlement that had been bred into him. He could take getting the shit kicked out of him and keep going, invigorated by punches; there was a solid core of determination, bearing up beneath a surface of mercurial sulks and moodswings. But here, it was all knocked out of him, and he puffed like a thing filled with helium, deflating. It was a lot to take in. Stewy felt sorry for him and simultaneously repelled: it was like seeing him take a shit. He felt he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to. Something he’d have been happier not to see. Time for splitsville. 

“Mr Roy,” Stewy said. “I didn’t mean to cause any harm by drinking your, ah, your -- bottle of Budweiser. I do apologise. Sincerely.” He smiled, making it clear that he was not, and Kendall looked at him with a kind of strangled horror. “I think I do have work to do, now that you’ve brought it to my attention, so I’ll be on my way.” 

He took a long swallow of the beer and set it down audibly, with a click, on the merled marble counter. “Thank you so much for your hospitality, sir. Ken, I’ll see you on Monday,” he said, clapping Kendall on the shoulder, and making his way past him. Thankfully he’d left his shit all the foyer, so he didn’t have to walk past the inaudible yelling. Boorish, Stewy thought. A mean little monkey blowhard, puffed up on his own success. It didn’t take much to bully Kendall; anyone could see that. It wasn’t like there was much reward in pushing him around. Logan Roy’s life had been a series of low-hanging fruit; as someone who had already developed a preternatural talent for the snatching thereof, Stewy found himself less than impressed. But there was no accounting for taste, or family, and while he’d been lucky with both one had to make allowances for those who were not. And he didn’t necessarily want to go down the rabbit hole of feeling sorry for Kendall, who was at 16 one of the richest people on the planet through absolutely no merit of his own. Which psychic burden, while admittedly a burden, was still one that Stewy would happily shoulder in exchange for that ludicrous Scrooge McDuck pile of cash. 

On Monday, they had first period together. Kendall was moving slowly in a way that it took Stewy a while to put together was a hangover, which was a first for a fucking nerd like him. They ditched after and went to get Kendall coffee, and then Stewy rubbed his back when he threw it up into a garbage can outside the coffee shop. “Dude,” he said. He wasn’t sure whether to say _Jesus your dad is mean_ or _Jesus, really, over him?_

“Fuck off,” Kendall said, eyeing him balefully, spitting strings of drool into the garbage, and his expression was so deeply _Kendall_ \-- a scrappy little terrier backed into a corner and still yipping away ferociously -- that Stewy was overcome with a sudden feeling that he supposed was fondness, and he would have grabbed Kendall’s shoulders and done what? Squeezed him? Hit him? Held him? But he didn’t want Kendall to puke again, so instead he just punched his shoulder, lightly, and Kendall rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. 

**

When Stewy was 22, he’d already founded, run, and released to new management -- albeit with a generous equity package and retention of board seat -- his own fund, which specialised in oil securities and was generously funded by liquidity and insider trading knowledge both of which were familial in origin. He’d walked away with if not quite majority stakeholder control then at least enough to ensure the Hosseini interest would be well represented. Kendall had been spitting mad, not least because they’d both been featured in _Forbes’_ 30 under 30 and while Stewy had gotten a leading splash quote about the value of removing the fossils from fossil fuel -- complete with dewy close-up highlighting his youth vis-a-vis said fossils; his fund had outperformed many of the incumbents -- Kendall had only gotten the standard headshot, and the reporter had really only been interested in learning what Logan thought of the Clintonian defanging of Glass-Steagal (“It’s a great thing, a great opportunity for Waystar Royco,” Kendall had said somewhat unimpressively, and the failed to provide any conclusive reasoning for as to why, thus relegating himself to the aforementioned standard B&W headshot plus placement in 1x full-bleed ensemble pic).

They’d gone to buy copies when it had come out. Kendall looked positively constipated. Jubilant, Stewy had dragged him into the nearest brunch place -- they were, thankfully, near enough FiDi, home of the anything-cum-bar -- and ordered a bottle of Dom, even though it was 8am on a Thursday. It came with a pichet of orange juice for propriety’s sake. He made Ken down the first glass with him sloppily and immediately refilled the crystal with foaming sparkles. His cellphone was buzzing off the hook. He’d initially thought the whole thing was just so much useful bullshit, and he’d been true, but he’d underestimated the utility of said bullshit. They were not the only suited men drinking champagne in the establishment. Kendall drank his second glass very quickly and refilled it very quickly as though he was afraid Stewy would take it away. His phone had been vibrating and finally he picked it up. “Yeah,” he said as Stewy signalled for another, and then, muttering into his phone -- “Look, I know, I’m sorry, just -- look, uh, let me step outside,” and he signalled to Stewy and walked away, holding the phone slightly away from him. He looked very young, walking away, even though they were the same age. He was allowed to bring the glass outside even though that was technically illegal. Stewy turned the empty bottle upside down in its crushed-ice throne. 

A while later, Kendall came back, his glass dry and phone back in his pocket. He poured another so quickly it frothed over the top and he sucked at the flute’s lip and his own sticky fingers greedily where the fizz burst on them, and Stewy was half-drunk already and laughing at Kendall slurping up champagne, and Kendall’s smile was wide when he leaned over and said hotly in Stewy’s ear, _you got any, you know,_ and Stewy nodded and they not-so-discreetly departed together to the disabled bathroom, whereupon they took turns doing rails off the shiny back of Kendall’s phone. Stewy felt the cold bitter drip down the back of his throat, the numbness medically intense, the hallmark of Good Shit. Kendall grinned at him manically and rubbed the residue on his gums. Over uneaten breakfast and another bottle of Dom, he grew in coked-up confidence until the anger sloughed off his shoulders and he was back, the scrappy little Kendall he knew from back when, or at least a facsimile. Stewy was just relieved a sun had broke though the raincloud lately hanging forever over his head. Albeit however chemically-induced and neuro-transmitter-scrambling. 

But the eventual neural car-crash would be later, and for now they were kings of the fucking Thirty under Thirty, which it was kind of embarrassing how seriously they were taking it, except Waystar stock was actually ticking up, per Kendall’s broker’s texts, and Stewy’s interests were not it must be acknowledged doing too badly either. They had the waiter decant the last of the Dom into coffee cups, and piled into Kendall’s car and cruised back to Stewy’s Tribeca apartment whereupon Stewy ordered more coke and Kendall poured Hennessy and they were suddenly completely trashed at 2pm. They had both graduated only months before, with Stewy again more or less at parity regarding grades despite caring less, which Kendall continued to consider wildly and absurdly unfair but made perfect sense to Stewy; his caring less was an asset, a luxury Kendall didn’t have and couldn’t imagine. Kendall cared so much he could not be objective; he wanted things so badly he willed them into being, and that was dangerous. Psych 101: when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Kendall, of course, did not see this. But Kendall also, Stewy thought ironically, had overdeveloped expectations re: return on investment, without ever having had to hustle to make said investment. Could he ever really claim he’d earned anything on merit? Did it even exist, for him? How many times had he been in GQ again; and was he really _that_ interesting -- did he think he was?

Of course this same disinterested part of Stewy recognised that keeping Kendall close and sweet was a net advantage to them both, but there was a genuine part beneath that also loved Kendall’s recklessness: wild-eyed, doing bumps off his keys, blasting TRL, _unpredictable_ like so little in Stewy’s life was, even at 22. The sun rose in a hot parabola unaware of its inevitable fall. They decided to throw a houseparty. Kendall showered. They smoked a joint to take the edge off and deployed Visine. 

The girls arrived and the alumni arrived and the finest of the MBAs, looking for a cut of wherever was next, and some of their fellow thirty-under-thirties, and the night passed in a beaded, glimmering, boozy whirl. There was a bar set up that Stewy didn’t remember organising, and he made a note to tip the building staff; that was good fucking service from someone and he made a point of remembering these things. It paid off in the long run. Kendall was clumsily hitting on some girl, holding -- Stewy cringed to see -- a fucking copy of the magazine, and see this debacle of overweening pride here was what exactly what he was referring with the whole fucking merit thing, because no matter how cringy Kendall was being, which was _very,_ the girl would almost definitely fuck him anyway, and he’d probably never know what a bad impression of a normal person he was really doing without someone to tell him. Stewy fucked two separate girls at the party, once in his bed (unsatisfying; coke dick) and once in his coat closet (unsatisfying; sex while standing was awkward / too much effort) and as the moon cycled above invisible through the light pollution foggy above, the partygoers rotated through the penthouse like constellations of stars held in each others’ gravitational pull. 6 am rolled around and the last of the girls rolled out to catch the train among the morning commuters. He came back inside after letting them out. Kendall was still there, lying on the couch, blathering on about something or other. Stewy was crashing.

He poured a final glass of champagne and Kendall sat up at that and he rolled his eyes. “Oh, now you’re up,” he said, but warmly, and he found another half-bottle in the fridge and poured that out for Kendall.

“Good fucking party, bro,” Kendall said. He looked wan and wired in the dawn light, his face grey but his eyes manic. He produced a little baggie from his pocket. “Xanax?” he said.

“Oh shit, good call.”

Half an hour later, Stewy was pleasantly blunted by the warmth of the Xanax, feeling his heartrate slow to a comforting bob. Kendall’s eyes were glazed over. “I’m going to bed,” Stewy said, finally, and Kendall looked up at him pleadingly.

“Fine, sleep on the couch,” Stewy said, and Kendall scoffed at him. “No way, dude, it’s fucking cold out here.”

“Okay, fine, Jesus,” Stewy said. “You’re so fucking needy, dude, that throw is merino, it is cozy as fuck,” but also, whatever, he didn’t really give a shit. His bed was miraculously not disgusting; he’d had the foresight earlier to fuck on top of it, so it was even still made, which felt nice and domestic all things considered. He and Kendall stripped off and climbed into bed the way they’d done dozens of times in their teenage years and chatted shit and finished their champagne and trailed off into silence until, finally, they dozed in a comedown chemical haze, not quite asleep or awake.

“Dude,” Kendall said. He pushed at Stewy’s shoulder. The dawn fell in weak pinkish grey bars through the venetians, slicing across them. Kendall’s face was in the shade. They’d both already called their respective offices pleading days off, rescheduling meetings, and Stewy -- probably because of the residual coke buzz, he told himself -- felt the spark of conspiratorial teenage history as Kendall cackled next to him. 

“Dude,” Kendall said, quietly, persistently.

“Oh my God, _what_ ,” Stewy moaned dramatically. There was some record droning on in the background, some airy French shit Kendall was into, he was trying to be sophisticated these days. Stewy had the vague sense of unreality that comes with being awake for >24 hours. Kendall raised his head off the bed. He was sipping a beer, which he’d produced from Christ knew where.

“Well done on _Forbes_ ,” Kendall said, squeezing Stewy’s wrist. “You totally crushed it, man.” His voice was painfully sincere. It was hard to tell how much was real and how much was just him getting carried away. Kendall was the sort of person who committed to a given reality by more or less convincing himself aloud, as if he could will it into being -- came with being stupid rich, Stewy assumed -- and if you let him go on he’d keep working himself up into newer and grander realities. “With the portrait and the splash, man, that’s fucking sweet -- but I mean, of course you got it. It comes so, uh, so -- easy to you.”

“Easy to me? What, are you serious?” 

“Well, duh, yeah,” Kendall said, finishing the beer. He sat up. “I’m not sleeping,” he said, and padded out, and came back holding another open bottle of champagne.

“Ken,” Stewy said.

“One more glass. I have more Xanax. Tomorrow’s Saturday, we have a whole weekend to recover. I need a smooth landing. I’ll share.”

Stewy frowned as if to refuse -- like, as if he were seriously going to withhold approval the way both he and Kendall knew that he very clearly was not. But still, it was nice to allow himself to be convinced, and Kendall enjoyed the feeling of getting away with something, and so he immediately began to play his part, cajoling him, waving the champagne enticingly. He poured Stewy a glass and fished the Xanax out of his sportcoat pocket, from where it was crumpled on the floor, and presented it to him with an ironical flourish.

“You do _not_ know how to slow down, dude,” Stewy said, but he accepted the glass. 

“Fuck off,” Ken said. “Here. Cheers to you on a job well done.”

They washed down the Xanax with a clink. It was firmly the morning and the roof of Stewy’s mouth was tacky and sour. Kendall was chattering on maniacally about something. He waited for the Xanax to hit and sipped from his glass.

“You gotta work on your quote game, bro,” he said. Part of his brain, the constant surveillance / deterrence / intelligence operative always clicking and ticking away in the background, was like: it’s a zero sum game, you stupid motherfucker, and the other part was like, well -- what was it like? When Kendall wasn’t moping about complaining and taking things too seriously he was _fun_ ; he had an unexpectedly dry sense of humor that poked its way through occasionally (albeit it did not mean, as Stewy had quickly understood, that the Roys and/or his own ego were available for humour purposes; Kendall was generally about one badly-timed criticism away from a nervous breakdown at all times, a fact Stewy had also, to his detriment, learned several times over); he had that reckless streak; he was smart, or could be in the right situations, which was almost the same thing. And he was ambitious, passionately devoted to himself above all else, building an image of himself he’d seen reflected in dreams of beloved ambition, more important beyond all other idols. This made him both safe and pliable. Stewy always knew where he stood. 

And yet despite the disadvantage to himself he found himself saying: “You always do this at these interviews. You just say something like, super PR-y and vague about your dad, or the health of the business, and it also looks kind of defensive, you know, with the rumours about Waystar being overleveraged. Like neither of those are exciting or are, like, your USP, bro, they’re not gonna publish some generic meaningless business talk. You gotta develop your own personal brand.”

“I’m super PR-y?” Kendall said, in that voice he did when he was trying to figure out how offended he was supposed to be, and potentially talk himself into being annoyed.

“It’s such obvious spin, dude.”

“Your PR team write your fucking narrative too.”

“Yes, and they do a better job than whatever second-rate agency you’re working with, because people _know who I am_ , I am the young oil guy, it is post-enough 9/11 that it’s chill to trust Arabs with oil again dude and I found a niche in, like, young upstart meets crude futures, because I built a recognisable brand there. All your recognisable brand is, like, Logan Roy’s sentient skin tag. Nobody knows who you are or what you stand for.”

“That’s total bullshit, Stewy,” Kendall said. But he was pensive, frowning. “You just wouldn’t understand. It’s so much easier for you.”

“That’s like the second time you’ve said that, dude, what does that even mean,” Stewy said. He could feel his heart-rate begin to decelerate pleasantly again. The slur in Kendall’s voice indicated a similar phenomenon taking place.

“Just, you know,” Kendall looked at him. His eyes were bright in the gloom. “You’re so… uh, charming, I guess.” He laughed like he was clearing his throat. “You know, you just always know what to say.”

And maybe it was just a matter of the many and varied substances changing their respective ratios within the configuration of his poisoned little bloodcells that accounted for him not being as pissed at Kendall as he normally would be for such a, well, display. But Kendall was smiling at him, sincere though absolutely an epiphenomenon of his total obliteration. And he realised Kendall really did mean it, which was somehow more uncomfortable than the usual repertoire of victimy shit and/or unconvincing bluster. Kendall was smiling at him in the gloom softly. He did not look handsome. He looked something Stewy couldn’t quite place. Stewy was suddenly reminded of the fight they’d had all those years ago, and how he’d wanted to spit on Kendall’s face. He wondered if Kendall would have let him.

“You earned it, bro,” Kendall said, and leaned back over and grabbed his wrist again. He smiled wickedly and leaned in closely. “But I’m fucking coming for you next year.”

“Just you fucking try, dick. I’ve faced down worse than you,” Stewy said, his mouth suddenly dry, and he saw something ignite in Kendall’s eyes, and he grinned back. Kendall’s hand was very tight on his wrist, his fingers digging in enough to hurt. 

Together they fell asleep. He thought Kendall’s arm might have been around his waist at one point.

In the afternoon, when he woke up, Kendall was gone -- alongside, he noticed, any trace of the coke. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stewy and Kendall Are Horrible Friends.

**Author's Note:**

> title cribbed from a david foster wallace story. my take on all the great tropes around our favourite duo, long-suffering stewy & fuck-up ken


End file.
